


though time is ruthless,

by donnamosss



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, lexa belongs to me i took her from the writers, when will the 100 free me!!!!! i hate this!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 12:11:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6238243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donnamosss/pseuds/donnamosss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“tell me about your childhood,” clarke says softly on a cool autumn morning, her lips pressed to the tattoo on the back of lexa’s neck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	though time is ruthless,

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this bc im emo about lexa and she Deserved Better & also i want to push my Lexa Is An Ocean Lesbian headcanon on everyone. 
> 
> s/o to kelsie @scullyseason10 and allison @trashemoji for listening to me even tho i never shut the fuck up about lexa ily both

_though time is ruthless,_

_it showed us kindness in the end_

_by slowing down enough,_

_a second chance to make amends_

-mars, sleeping at last

 

lexa is born in a little house by the sea, a tiny girl with a shock of dark hair and eyes that mirror the waves that crash on the beach outside. she has a gentle and kind mother and a father with a booming voice, a hard stare, and a soft spot for his daughter. her father is the one who throws lexa into the water before she can even walk (“it’s the only way to learn,” he tells her mother) and lexa sputters and sinks, her little limbs churning furiously and her lungs burning, before she thrusts her head above the waves, eyes finding her father’s proud grin.

 

“oh she is strong, this one!” he boasts to his friends later, gesturing to the tiny sopping-wet girl.

 

lexa grows into a fierce child, all wide eyes and skinny scraped-up limbs and hair that never seems to stay in the braids her mother’s calloused hands twist so tenderly. she walks with her brother to the beach by their house, the tough soles of their feet settling easily on the pebbled ground. lexa selects smooth stones and seashells to place on her windowsill, and chases after crabs that scuttle under rocks and into holes to avoid her small hands. if she wakes early enough, when the sky is still streaked with pink, her father takes her out on his boat, where she helps him by untangling nets and baiting hooks. he teaches her old songs and lets her sit in the front of the boat, where she closes her eyes and lets the salty water spray her face.

 

“you are going to be great one day, my little _leksa_ ,” her father tells her one night and lexa nods solemnly because the words are heavy and she loves her father more than anything in the world. but lexa does not think about greatness when she thinks of a future. she can only think of her little village where the air smells like the sea and inheriting her father’s boat and untangling nets and baiting hooks forever. she can’t think of anything she wants to do more.

 

//

 

when lexa is eight her mother dies and her father hardens. his temper shortens and he stops bringing lexa onto his boat no matter how early she wakes and he leaves lexa and her brother alone for days at a time. lexa learns to braid her own hair and that those we love do not always act the way we want them to. there is no longer time for barefoot trips to the beach to collect small treasures and lexa begins to forget the words to the songs her father taught her.

 

it is not long after that that lexa is told she is to be a warrior. “the highest honor,” they tell her, and she nods solemnly, wills herself not to cry when she hugs her brother for the last time, when her father can’t even meet her eyes as she bids him goodbye (warriors don’t cry, she knows this for certain).

 

“be strong, little _leksa_ ,” her father mutters, so quietly she almost wonders if he even meant for her to hear him.

 

//

 

she meets costia when they are both eleven. lexa is harder and more tempered now, no longer the little girl who shouted gleefully as she chased crabs under rocks, the one who would dive out of her father’s boat and race him back to the dock when they were close enough, but she is still a child—she picks flowers and weaves them into crowns for the other seconds in her division, she makes faces behind anya’s back when the older woman isn’t looking to make the other warriors chuckle. lexa is eleven and she has her first kill scar but she is still young enough and soft enough that the memory wakes her in the night, eyes wide and breaths shallow and quick. she is old enough to know, though, that she must wipe the hot tears off her cheeks before anyone notices.

 

costia has gentle hands and a loud mouth. she is all sharp limbs and boisterous laughter and more hair than body. costia’s mother is a healer—the best there is, anya says—and costia is set to follow in her mother’s footsteps (if she can ever stay still long enough to learn anything, that is).

 

lexa and costia become fast friends in the way that only eleven year old girls can. they climb trees and skin their knees and make up secret handshakes and whisper urgently into each other’s ears. with costia, lexa is no longer a warrior-in-training, she is _leksa_ —the young girl with eyes the color of the sea and without the weight of the world on her shoulders. they make up elaborate stories and lay in clearings looking up at the stars, mapping out constellations they invent themselves, inhabiting worlds where they are the only residents, composing fanciful plans for the future. costia grabs lexa’s hand and drags her into meadows and through forests and around corners and lexa lets herself be pulled, laughing all the way.

 

“you would follow that girl anywhere,” anya grumbles disapprovingly, after lexa and costia have gotten into some kind of trouble for the umpteenth time, and lexa thinks she is right.

 

//

 

the first time costia kisses lexa they are thirteen. lexa is strapped into battle armor that barely fits her tiny frame and the warpaint anya streaked on her face feels foreign and she is so so nervous but she straightens her back and puffs out her chest when she tells costia goodbye. costia’s eyes are big and she is as quiet as she has ever been when she darts forward and presses her lips to lexa’s, right there behind the medical tent. lexa’s eyes widen and her heart skips and something about this feels _right_ , more right than anything ever has. costia draws back, all the vulnerability that was so plain a moment before gone completely from her face, a self-assured smirk solidly in its place.

 

“see you soon, _leksa_ , all right?” she says—and it is an order, not a request.

 

lexa, speechless with burning cheeks, can only nod.

 

“don’t forget me,” costia says in lieu of a goodbye as she kisses lexa’s cheek, and lexa doesn’t say it but she knows she never could, she never will.

 

later, when anya sees lexa’s smudged warpaint and the goofy grin the girl just can’t seem to suppress, she can only sigh heavily and shake her head.

 

//

 

lexa is sixteen when she becomes commander. there is a celebration in the streets of polis but lexa is still covered in blood from her conclave and all she wants is costia, costia, costia. she wants costia’s easy words and earnest eyes and steady hands and she thinks in her exhausted state she babbles something of the sort to anya while her mentor is bandaging her cuts. anya purses her lips and lexa thinks she sees the ghost of a smile on the older woman’s face when she says,

 

“i don’t think you’ll have to wait long, _heda_.”

 

this is the first time lexa has been addressed by her new title, and she feels the weight of that word settle into her chest, feels it lodge between her ribs, and it’s so heavy she can hardly breathe for it. she doesn’t have long to consider the weight, though, because all of a sudden costia is bursting into the room in that way she has, telling lexa’s guards exactly where she thinks they can go if they don’t get out of her way _right this second_ and then costia’s arms are around lexa’s neck and she’s pulling lexa into her lap and her lips are on lexa’s lips and her words are in lexa’s ears, _i knew you could do it i’m so proud of you i love you i love you i love you_ and lexa is crying hot tears against costia’s neck.

 

“i love you too,” she says, messy and tearful and _young_ , so young, and costia holds her and doesn’t let go.

 

//

 

costia fills any room she’s in, fills it with her laughter and her easiness and her love. when costia is in a room there’s simply no space left for lexa’s self-doubt, for the weight of the lives she’s had to take and the ones she’s been too careless to save. lexa is the leader of her people, she is _heda_ , she is the person armies look to for direction and the person warriors leave their homes and families to fight and die for. but not with costia. with costia she is _leksa_ , and she is the girl from a small village by the ocean and she is seventeen and she is in love. when lexa is with costia every hard choice she has ever had to make, every bloody battle, every sacrificial plan, seems worth it—it must be worth it, if costia loves her this much.

 

no one dares suggest to lexa that she would be better off without costia (they have learned better), although titus often comes close, reminding her anxiously every few weeks that “commanders must be alone,” but it is easy for lexa to ignore him, to dismiss him with a wave of her hand, and it is especially easy when she returns to her room at night to find costia sprawled on her couch, a sly grin on her face and a quippy remark on her tongue and love in her eyes.

 

//

 

lexa’s world shatters on a beautiful morning in early autumn. the sun has just broken over the horizon, streaking the sky with pink and orange and it looks just like the mornings lexa used to rise early to join her father on the ocean. this is what lexa remembers, later: there is a pastel sky and there is shouting in the hallway and an urgent knock at her door and a box with an unspeakable horror inside and there is her on the floor, her chest ripping in half and her screams echoing off the stone floors of her bedroom, the one she shares (used to share) with costia.

 

//

 

there is before costia and there is after costia. the world took much from lexa before costia—took her mother and her future by the ocean and her windowsill with the smooth stones and the shells, took her innocence and her wildness and most of her childhood, took her father and her brother and took her ability to sleep dreamlessly. all of this, though, was forgivable when she had costia. with costia, lexa could be a person instead of _heda,_ could reserve a small part of her heart to keep tender and vulnerable. costia was proof the world could still be gentle, could still be kind. without costia, lexa has nothing. _leksa_ is gone and there is only _heda_ — _heda_ with her cold stares and harsh words and harsher decisions.

 

everyone lexa has ever loved is gone from her, and the only way she knows to keep people safe is to stop loving.

 

stop loving, until a girl falls from the sky. a girl with blonde hair and bright eyes and hope on her tongue and innocence in her bones. lexa watches the ground toughen this girl, this _clarke_ , watches her grapple with the same impossible choices lexa has been facing for years, but she can’t help but be awestruck by the inherent goodness so evident in her, the way she never accepts the worst and always fights for the best. something small and quiet and hopeful sprouts in lexa’s barren chest and she doesn’t know what to do about it.

 

//

 

before lexa knows it clarke is inescapable and everywhere—she is in lexa’s alliance and backing lexa into tables and poring over lexa’s maps and charts and challenging lexa in ways no one else dares to and she is swimming in front of lexa’s eyes before she falls asleep. lexa is lost—she doesn’t know what to do and she is terrified of the way everything in her softens when she looks at clarke, the way something about standing in front of an army feels more right when clarke is next to her, the way _everything_ feels more right when clarke is next to her. lexa tries to pull herself back from the edge of whatever this is, to follow her own advice and protect people by remaining distant, but it is too late—she has already plunged in head first and there’s nothing to be done about it.

 

_feeling_ so much after spending so long suppressing every emotion she has is overwhelming—being around clarke makes the walls lexa has so carefully constructed threaten to tumble down at any moment. it is terrifying and it is exhilarating and it is the most _human_ lexa has felt since that cool autumn morning what feels like a lifetime ago. she sits up late nights and remembers titus’ words and the all encompassing grief and guilt of losing costia and tries to weigh it against the way she feels when she looks at the girl who fell from the sky but there is no contest—clarke wins every time.

 

and so when clarke asks her if she thinks they deserve more than just surviving lexa takes the scariest chance she’s every taken, more terrifying than leading armies into battle and forging alliances after decades of war, more terrifying than looking into the eyes of mothers and fathers and knowing you and you alone are responsible for the lives of their children—she slips a hand into clarke’s hair and she kisses her. clarke is kissing her back and then she is drawing away and lexa’s heart sinks but there is a small smile on clarke’s face when she says “not yet” and lexa tucks that smile into that soft and vulnerable corner of her heart, the one she thought was gone forever.

 

//

 

before everything falls apart, lexa tells clarke she wants her to come to polis. after everything falls apart, clarke does.

 

clarke is different after the mountain. she is haunted and she is in pain and lexa can hardly stand to see it, can’t bear to think of the ways in which she might be responsible.

 

“i never meant to turn you into this” ( _i never meant to turn you into_ me).

 

lexa’s love is not good, it is ugly and dangerous and it poisons everything it touches. except. except that clarke doesn’t hate her. except that clarke isn’t irreparably broken—she is healing and rebuilding at her own pace. except that there is a quiet warmth in clarke’s eyes when she looks at lexa now, and lexa thinks maybe her love is not as tainted as she thought it was.

 

clarke stays in polis with her and she is everywhere again, in every corner and crack and crevice and lexa can barely breathe for the _hope_ of it all, for the future she can see with clarke in polis—ambassador and commander. she tries desperately to tamp down her optimistic thoughts—lexa of all people knows that things rarely turn out the way we want them to. but it is so difficult to not think of a softer and gentler future when clarke is curled in a chair, sketching her sleeping profile; when clarke is gently changing her bandages; when clarke is in her bed, soft and solid and warm and _there_.

 

//

 

“tell me about your childhood,” clarke says softly on a cool autumn morning, her lips pressed to the tattoo on the back of lexa’s neck.

 

lexa turns to her, a slight smile on her face, and tells her she has a better idea.

 

//

 

lexa and clarke hold hands down the streets of lexa’s childhood village. the same houses are still there, wood damp from the heavy ocean air. the same people too, and clarke’s eyes shine when they all call lexa “ _leksa_ ” instead of “ _heda”_ —an old habit they can’t break. they tell clarke about a little girl with the sea in her eyes and a fire in her heart and an easy laugh and clarke’s heart swells and she can’t tear her eyes away from lexa, whose cheeks redden at the attention. lexa shows her the beach and the docks and her little whitewashed house, points at the windowsill where she used to place the small treasures she collected, the cliff nearby where she used to sit and daydream about the future. clarke tries to picture lexa as a little girl, unburdened and unaware of the various cruelties the world has in store for her. her heart rises to her throat.

 

“is it what you dreamed? your future?” clarke asks her, gently.

 

lexa thinks of the simple life she used to imagine in this village, of the tiny house and the well worn boat and the smell of fish and the sound of waves crashing on the shore. she thinks of costia and the impossible sacrifices she has had to make and the responsibility of commander, the burden she will bear for as long as she lives. but then she looks at clarke, blonde hair spilling down her back and head titled towards lexa, waiting for an answer to her question, and she tightens her grip on clarke’s hand when she says, softly,

 

“no. it is better.”

**Author's Note:**

> idk i played kind of fast and loose wrt canon ~grounder culture~ but i dont care bc nothing on this show makes sense anyway 
> 
> in conclusion lexa and clarke r in love and also they're literal soulmates thanks for ur time 
> 
> im on tumblr @lesbianscullys


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